(rock music)
- After a wild day of head's up drag racing
where we showcased the raw performance
and acceleration of these trucks,
we now bring it to the most technical part
of the 2017 Diesel Power Challenge, presented by XDP.
That, of course, is the trailer towing obstacle course.
We're going to check the driver's ability,
and also the nimble-ability of the trucks.
Can they accelerate this load,
and can they weave in between the cones?
This one really separates those
that can drive and those that can't.
We're going to see a lot of crunched cones
and a lot of happy guys, as well as some broken dreams.
(fast, quiet music)
We've got used to Mother Nature showing up
at the Diesel Power Challenge, presented by XDP,
over the years here at Bandimere.
This year, her stop came just before we were getting ready
to start the trailer towing obstacle course.
If there's a benefit for our competitors,
the ability to get out there and walk the track
for a little bit more time than they normally have.
We'll see if that attention to detail helps their driving
performance when they weave between the cones.
So it's time for our first competitor,
2016 Diesel Power Challenge winner, Charlie Keeter.
On the starting line right now, spooling the turbos up,
getting ready for the horn and here we go.
(air horn sounding)
(brakes squealing) - Now you can notice the
ground is wet, so this is going to be kind of interesting
to find out if the traction, both turning, stopping,
and accelerating is going to be affected by the wet pavement.
Slightly different course layout this year.
You can see Keeter being very deliberate
through the first couple a sets of cones there,
as he makes that first, initial hard turn.
The elements are all the same from last year,
it's just the way we've laid this thing out has changed
a little bit, as Keeter slides the truck into reverse
and heads back into that long backing section.
So Keeter's got himself in a little trouble here
as you can see him really working the wheel back and forth.
When you get the truck into this kind of movement,
never really a good thing; you want to be very steady.
Now he's got it gathered up.
Keeter's experience in last year's event
really going to help him out here.
He has nerves of steel and the guy did very well
in this part of the competition last year,
and he's looking like he's in pretty good shape now.
Very close on that last gate, wow.
So there goes Charlie, backing it up,
swinging the truck sideways.
Now he's going to get that thing down
into low gear and accelerate hard.
So this is one of those new gates,
kind of a modified turn that we've added here,
kind of that arcing, sweeping, right.
And now he's really going to put the power to it
to come across the course,
come through that kind of chicane area and get ready
to set himself up into the box.
(engine accelerating)
Now all he has to do here is put
the nose of the truck in this box.
He's going to slam on the brakes right quick,
nose is in, he's good.
Now it's the back up.
This is the one that really throws guys for a loop.
Can he get it in there clean?
And Keeter
hanging out the door to get a good look at the stop box
back there, he's trying to slide the trailer
without hittin' anything.
And Charlie Kee-ooh (air horn blast)
he hit a couple right at the end.
He got two at the end.
That's going to be a penalty.
Keeter has a full time of 2:18.56
when he's been assessed his penalties.
Pretty strong time, but he'd like those 10 seconds back.
Next competitor's going to be Wisconsin's Tim Jahn.
Tim coming up here to the starting line
after a pretty awesome experience on the drag strip.
You know, he had never really drag raced before,
had quite the Cinderella story, making the final round.
We're going to find out now what
he can do here in the trailer tow.
Jahn still moving along pretty good,
his truck more than capable of moving that Bobcat.
Ooh, touched one but didn't knock it over
oop, there he goes.
Got one on the corner there, came in a little tight,
So he's already racking up the penalties and we haven't
even got through the first set of corners yet.
Did not square the truck totally up.
Now we're going to find out if he starts to over compensate
and gets that truck into kind of a swinging motion.
Still in control, but it's moving around a whole bunch.
Notice that this back up, kind of tunnel area, isn't
super tight, you do have a little bit of wiggle room
on each side and that allows the drivers to do
exactly what you're seeing right there.
So Tim is almost through this thing.
Now it's the critical moment to set the trailer up,
which he's got it swung out in the perfect direction.
Now we enter kind of the high-speed weaving portion
of the program, as Tim is very deliberate.
Takes that thing in deep to get it squared up perfectly.
Very nice job through those cones.
The only thing we've seen him touch so far
is that one cone very early on.
Looked like it might have, it's going to be a dicey run for him
but he's pulled it back together for sure.
Wow!
Big speed there, you can see the trailer whipping around.
Oh man, and there's actually a cone or two dragging
under the trailer from his time weaving across the course.
You can actually see it popping up (chuckles)
there they go right there.
So those two cones, dead customers if you will,
they've been knocked out of the way.
We'll see how desperate Tim gets here to put this thing in.
He's going to have some penalties assessed against him.
He does not want to mess this part of the program up.
One, two (air horn) yep, get another couple of cones there,
the score keeper's definitely going to have to pull
the calculator out on this one.
Turns out Tim Jahn's final time, 2:26.57.
(two air horn blasts)
Alright, it's Kevin Jacob's turn to shine right now
as his 2005 Dodge Ram is hooked to the trailer
and he is powering out of the gate with a whole bunch
of smoke coming out of the tail pipe as he is
really giving it the mustard.
(engine accelerating)
So Tim kind of looking out over the nose of the truck,
trying to get himself squared away nicely.
Very tight in that corner.
Didn't touch anything but he was close.
Haven't seen too much struggle so far,
out of our competitors, in the backing area.
Both Keeter and Tim Jahn did a nice job
going through these cones.
And Jacob is doing a pretty nice job as well.
Very slight steering movements, you can see the
bed of the truck moving just a little bit
as he works that steering wheel back and forth.
Very nicely done here.
(engine accelerating)
Cleanly through the box, but now looks like the
trailer is trying to move in the wrong direction,
so he's going to take a little bit of a wider swing
to get that thing spun out right,
which he just did, perfectly.
There it goes, back into low gear
and here comes our high-speed weave.
(engine accelerating)
Through that set of gates, all the way across
the center of the course, kind of the
high-speed area if you will.
Bit of a reversal of direction from last year's
and the previous years' layout.
Keeping these guys on their toes.
Jacob seems to be just completely unflappable here,
the guy is showing no emotion, just getting the job done.
Is he going to get through this thing cleanly?
So far everybody's clipped a cone.
Oh no, looks like he's going to miss the box,
and yeah, you can see the look on his face
as he has to pull the truck into drive.
Now this gets weird, 'cause you're going to get the trailer
in a spot that you may not want it
and it's going to be either desperation
and get it in there with penalties
or take the time and do it the old fashioned way.
And Jacobs, again going to pull ahead.
Oh man, this is killin' him.
He may have been better off just going in there
and accepting a penalty, 'cause now he's going to drive
halfway across the course and have to back
the truck up a hundred yards to get it into the box.
Workin' the wheel like a madman.
Clean.
He is clean, if you hit those cones
at the back it's okay, you just cannot
hit the ones at the side.
2:12.48 the final time, and actually a pretty good time
because he was assessed no penalties.
So here comes Rich Strube with that
2005 GMC 3500 HD Dually.
He has got more width to deal with out here
and there are a couple sections of this course
where more width is not the thing you want.
A whole lot of weight here to deal with, too,
as you can see him cranking the wheel and that thing
starting to lean over like a sinking ship.
Strube maintaining his calm.
Man, he is going way long in the set up here.
He is going to basically double his backing distance
to make sure he was fully squared up.
Maybe a good move or it could cause him a nightmare.
And he is already pulling forward, so he may be rapidly
approaching nightmare territory here as he gets
the thing back in reverse.
And again, he can see that long truck making
those big swings back and forth
and this is when things get ugly.
Once you get inside that box, you can't afford
to be making these big, giant movements.
Now he has gotten the thing squared up
wow, nice job, uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
And he's going to pull forward again.
(engine rumbling) He's not been assessed
any cone penalties, but he has been very, very,
let's call it deliberate, to this point in the run.
All the cones remain intact and the big Dually makes
its way through that portion of the test.
He really needs to make up some
serious time going forward here.
Hopefully that doesn't make him too desperate
as he swings the truck sideways.
The course pretty much dried out now.
Mother Nature moistened it up for us.
Still looking pretty calm in the cab.
Not carrying a whole lot of speed there.
Let's see how aggressive he gets yet (chuckling).
He's going to get real aggressive, wow.
(engine accelerating)
Strube working it through the gates.
This seems to be going pretty well for him.
So much wheel-base with this truck makes things difficult,
especially when you're (engine accelerating loudly)
backing up, and again, pouring on the coals
as he comes into the stop box.
Now let's see (chuckles) let's see his back-up prowess here.
He's going old-school Bob-Chandler-Monster-Truck-Driver
move here with his head fully out the window.
Pretty good.
Ooh, he may have been a little early on the cut.
And Strube
was slow in a couple a sections, but he's clean.
Didn't touch one cone over the entirety
of the whole course. (short air horn blast)
And that leaves him with a time
of two minutes, 38 seconds, point seven four.
So 2:38.74 for Rich Strube
So this could be Mike Bunkelman's time to shine,
you know, this is a single-turbo 5.9 Cummins truck.
Doesn't have the brute force that some of the other
machines have, but we'll find out if he has the driving
ability to put on a little bit of a show for us out here.
(engine accelerating)
Looks very good there,
let's see how smooth he is making the transition.
Lines the trailer up perfectly,
gets on the brakes quickly.
Nice job with this set up.
Bunkelman using the mirrors like a pro.
He's got those tow mirrors extended all the way out.
And he's getting the full view
of what's going on behind him.
And man, this dude is looking clean right now.
This is good.
Absolutely nothing to complain about through that section.
And nothing to complain about here
as he took the exact right moment.
The second he knew he was going to clear that
last cone he cut the wheel and made the back up move
and now off he goes to the races.
(engine accelerating)
And again across the course on the hammer.
Through that speedy gate there, makes the hard right,
again on the throttle.
Man, he is puttin' on a clinic out here.
That is exactly what this is supposed to look like.
Super smooth.
Now, does it all go to pieces here?
Is he able to hang with it?
I mean, he chucked that thing into reverse.
Mike Bunkelman
gets that trailer coming in,
gets it coming in pretty well.
Puts the full right steer into the truck
and that is absolutely perfect.
Wow.
Bunkelman put in one heck of an effort.
He can see the competitors. (air horn and crowd cheering)
That was a great run.
- We just saw Mike Bunkelman go through the
trailer obstacle course clean.
A hundred percent clean
and he did it very, very quickly.
- [Brian] One minute, 38.22.
Mike Bunkelman did it.
Wow, he is leading the field by a huge margin.
So our next competitor is Levi Krech,
as he leaves the starting line now.
Krech, the young guy, upbeat, very
kind of fun to hang around with.
Rockin' those shades.
(laughs)
Those are, heck of a set of shade
uh-oh, those shades certainly did
not help him miss that cone, though.
He got that one square.
Not sure if he even noticed that.
And sometimes it's better if you don't notice.
It doesn't get in your head at all
and Krech is going to hang that head of his right
outside the driver's door, and he's actually going to
watch the trailer manually, rather than use the mirrors.
He's going to go the old-school way.
Workin' that wheel back and forth.
Says I don't need no stinkin' mirrors.
Dude's got his head craned around like an owl,
looking out the back.
Mirrors or no mirrors, Krech is doing a fine job
of getting the truck through cleanly.
Perfectly centered up in the lane,
absolutely nothing to worry about.
He is feet away from both sides of this thing,
so he can take it through with a pretty good clip.
(engine accelerating)
And so Krech sets the truck up very nicely.
This is looking like he may give Bunkelman
a run for his money at this point.
Very smooth.
No drama so far.
Krech heading for that first set of gates.
Perhaps a little confusion,
looks like he's trying to figure out where he's
supposed to go as he makes his way to the right.
Now he's going to continue all the way across the course
and then hit that gate, uh-oh, no he's not.
Oh no.
Levi Krech has made a wrong turn.
Ooh this is bad.
He has just shot multiple seconds
worth of driving out of the course.
We're going to have to find out what the
officials actually decide to do with this run
because obviously it's not going to be a legal run.
He has missed a giant portion of the course.
It'd be unfair to let him run three quarters
of the course and make everybody go the full pull.
And so Krech is doing a fine job backing this trailer
up but I have a bad feeling he's about to get some
very disappointing news, as he's able to make that swing
perfectly, not touch any cones.
And again, the ruling of the officials, a DNF.
Oh, that is a heartbreaker for Levi Krech,
and all but eliminates any chance he has
to win the Diesel Power Challenge.
So next up is Patrick Whitcomb.
Second one of our big Duallys in the competition,
this one the four-powered truck and off he goes.
Rick going fairly sluggish off the starting line there,
didn't want to over do it, which is a smart move.
You don't want to carry too much speed
into this 90-degree left-hand turn.
The big Dually, ugh.
Much as that, that corner cone has
just been gettin' killed today.
Whitcomb one of many racers who got that corner cone
when they were trying to clip the apex with the trailer.
Whitcomb has begun with the trailer kind of pointing
to the right, which is going to make him do some extra
work in his big, long-wheel base, very wide Dually.
Paying attention to the mirrors,
keeping his head inside the truck.
We've seen a mix of those two techniques today.
Clean as a whistle, that big Dually, ooh-oo.
For some reason he put some extra steering into it, late.
Now he's going to have to fix it.
If he had just left the wheel alone,
he probably would have got through there clean.
So Whitcomb, despite the fact that he stopped,
he's going to cost himself a little time,
but he didn't incur any penalties.
Oooh, yes he did.
Demolished the last cone and the line
with the front wheel of the truck.
That's tough.
Again, no idea if he knows he hit it.
It's a 9,000-pound truck; driving over that cone may as well
be driving over a tin can on the side of the street.
So he is going to take the full course.
Unlike Krech, who made that mistake,
Whitcomb is not going to make that mistake.
There's a cross, goes through the gate he's supposed to.
Makes to the left hand side of the course,
going to weave to the right.
Very nicely done.
Only that two-cone penalty so far.
And again, you can see him
on the throttle as he goes through.
His competitors cheering him on there as he gets
the thing into reverse after perfectly
putting the nose in the stop box.
Now he goes for the rear-ward facing technique.
And Patrick Whitcomb
does a nice job, but can he complete the run one
looks like it might be a three-for over there
as he got a couple of cones.
He's looking out the window - Attaboy!
- and you can see him, you can see
the frustration in his face.
2:20.58 the final time for Patrick Whitcomb in the Dually.
Well, that means Mike Bunkelman is our champion.
KJ Jones caught up with Mike down in the pits
to talk about his amazing run.
- You went through with that truck there,
hooked up to that trailer with the Bobcat on it.
- [Mike] I was nervous just hooking on to it
and then looking at all the cones.
And then, I got out to the back corner.
It spooled up.
Burn the tires all the way to the middle section,
so I just said, might as well just hold on to it
and brought it around, back through everything perfectly.
Doing it underneath pressure and time.
- [KJ] Right, the timer on it.
- Is a real hard deal to me.
- Congratulations dude.
- [Brian] So there you have it, our final results
from the trailer towing obstacle course,
and it was Mike Bunkelman puttin' on a clinic out there.
A minute and 38 seconds.
Destroyed everybody.
Kevin Jacob was number two at two minutes and 12 seconds
point four-eight, and Charlie Keeter rounded out the top
three, going 2:18.56 after being assessed
20 seconds worth of cone penalties.
Next time, in the 2017 Diesel Power Challenge,
presented by XDP, we're going to sled pulling
and we're going to see who collects some hardware,
including naming our champion for the
2017 Diesel Power Challenge.
(rock music)